Dealing with Love and Confessing
by coryalith
Summary: Diagnosis: Yanagi Renji was in love.


**A/N**: I really hope this is entertaining.

Disclaimer: I don't own anything except for the writing. Just so you know.

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Yanagi was surprised that he didn't notice the symptoms earlier.

To be completely honest with himself, Yanagi knew that there was something wrong with him. He began to notice things that never really crossed his mind like how much ice cream costs in certain place and the best place to get sweets for a cheap price with quality food. There was a certain inkling that began to cross his mind when he began to wonder if baking cakes would be a good pass time.

Even Sanada seemed to have noticed the symptoms at some point. Yanagi noticed the other was asking Yanagi over for tea more often where they would generally sit in silence because Sanada was pretty socially awkward though that didn't stop Sanada from constantly asking the other about his day and how he was. It was a lie to say Yanagi wasn't confused but he mostly thought that Sanada was simply the type of person who liked to make sure that his friends were alright. For the record, Yanagi felt completely fine and was pretty medically healthy.

It wasn't until Yukimura sat Yanagi down and asked him who the person was that Yanagi realized what was wrong with him.

Diagnosis: Yanagi Renji was in love.

At some point, when Yanagi wasn't aware, he had succumbed to the contagious disease that people called love.

And it sucked.

Mostly because the person he fell in love with was Marui Bunta.

It's not that Yanagi didn't appreciate Marui, he did think that the boy was a good tennis player and a great teammate, it's just that Marui was a lot more irresponsible and childish than he would have liked. Marui was similar to Kirihara, they were both dumb but great tennis players. Well not exactly but Yanagi won't deny that there's a lack of smarts with the two except Kirihara just didn't get it and Marui was more focused on having fun than actually learning.

Still, Marui was really kind and even though he hated doing work, Yanagi could always see the other helping out the other second-years and first-years in the tennis club and how Marui would always be the first one trying to cheer others up when they were feeling down. The happiness that came from the other came out so casually that Yanagi didn't realize that maybe he liked Marui more than he thought.

The fact that Marui seemed to be completely oblivious was also not helping. The regular and completely friendly hugs or taps on shoulders would send Yanagi's body heat rising up 5 degrees and the look of concern on Marui's face at the reaction only made Yanagi flush even more around the boy.

Yanagi thought of just asking Marui if he wanted to go out with him but he never seemed to get the words out of his mouth. Once, Marui thought that the boy was choking and kept on hitting the boy on the back which only resulted in them both on the ground and Yanagi on top of the other. It was at that moment that Niou walked in and he kept on making snide, teasing comments at the two throughout practice. Yanagi had a hard time maintaining his calm composure. Marui had wanted to destroy something.

When he thought about it, Yanagi found that there were four likely results as to how Marui would react to his confession.

The first one was not very likely but still possible which was that Marui would reject Yanagi and would also become so awkward around Yanagi that their friendship would deteriorate. This normally seems to happen when a friend confesses to their other friend but Marui was a very easygoing person so the likelihood of this happening was slim.

This goes to the second result which was that Marui would reject Yanagi but would maintain their friendship though with a little awkwardness when it came to physical acts. This was the most likely option given Marui's personality.

The third result was possible which involved Marui accepting the confession but only out of kindness and their relationship wouldn't last past a week. It seems possible but Marui seemed to be a very honest person so for Marui to fake a relationship seemed out of hand.

The final result and the most unlikely was that Marui would accept the confession because he genuinely returned the Yanagi's reactions. Yanagi could see no reason for Marui to return his affections but there was a small part of him that wanted to be optimistic of the whole situation.

He relayed this information to Yukimura and Sanada so he could figure out the best way to deal with his affections. He was smart but dealing with love was completely different from figuring out a math equation or playing tennis. Sanada refused to participate in a conversation on such needless things and was uncomfortable the entire time. Yukimura told Yanagi to shut up, calm down, and just confess already.

It's not like Yanagi wasn't already trying to do that.

But he figured that worrying about how Marui would react to being confessed to was not the best course of action. There was always the chance that his data was incomplete, Yanagi wasn't that arrogant to think that he knew everything, and perhaps he had never really taken the time to observe whether Marui did hold anything more than casual affection. Besides, if Marui did reject him, Yanagi's feelings would just disappear since he wasn't the kind of person to continue crushing on someone that didn't like him back. Probably. 86% of that happening.

And so, that's how Yanagi found himself with his hand gripping Marui's wrist at the school gate while all the regulars just stared at him.

"Yanagi?"

At the sound of his name, Yanagi snapped out of his mental scolding for being impulsive and deciding to confess after tennis practice and forgetting to wait for everyone to leave. His voice was slightly higher than he wanted but he managed to get the words out this time. "I wanted to talk to you about something."

Marui looked confused and glanced at Jackal who was equally confused. "Sure, but do you want to go somewhere more private?"

"No, just stay here," said Niou who sounded why too eager about what was going to happen. Yagyuu promptly whacked his friend on the head.

Yanagi was going to simply ignore Niou but then realized the other regulars were just going to eavesdrop on the conversation. Especially since they were obviously not going to go anywhere since they still hadn't move from beyond the school gates. Yanagi breathed in and out and finally said, "It has come to my attention that I feel for something more than friendship and I wanted to ask if you wanted to go to that new sweets shop around the corner with me. And if you would want to go out with me."

Okay, that was not how the confession was supposed to go. The overly dramatic gasp was not needed either.

"Uh, sure."

Yanagi dropped Marui's wrist and was about to go into a full-length apology when he realized what had just happened. He mentally took some notes in his head but wanted to make sure that he had actually heard right. "You want to go out with me?"

Marui was running his fingers through his hair and looked away with a blush covering his cheeks. "Well that's what I just said right? I mean, I like you and you tend to help me with my homework and your data rants can be really annoying but I mean you're pretty cool-" He suddenly broke off and brought his hands up to his face  
and then continued in a muffled voice. "God, why couldn't you have done this in a more discreet place?"

All Yanagi decided to do then was just lean over and wrap his arms around Marui. A smile was on his face now and even though he heard a loud shout of "YES!" come from the other regulars, Yanagi didn't really care.

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**A/N**: Thank you for reading and please review! Or not. That's cool too.


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